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Monday, March 26, 2007

NAMASTE: BEATS SHAKING HANDS!

According to Gandhi, the meaning of NAMASTE, a Buddhist greeting with palms held together and a slight bow, is as follows: "I honor the place in you where the entire universe resides. I honor the place in you of light, love, truth, peace and wisdom. I honor the place in you where, when you are in that place, and I am in that place, there is only one of us."

According to Wikipedia the word has many meanings but the one above seems to cover most of the important points. It suggests that there is an automatic, beautiful connectedness between humans who allow enlightenment, love, truth, peace and wisdom to dominate them rather than ignoble ideals, base instincts and totally self-serving, divisive beliefs.

9 comments:

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Well, I grew up in the land of Namastes. The meaning is profound...but pretty much every sanskrit word has some interesting resonance.

In some sense "Namaste" is like recognizing the God in the person you are greeting. Well, it is not even God - there is no concept of God in Hindusim as far as I know - it is like recognizing "The Force" or Brahman.

But I dont think we conciously mean all that when we say Namaste. It is more of a polite greeting than anything else.